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GRAND FORKS, N.D.—Esquire Never. Inside the Law School Scam. Law Lemmings. Third Tier Reality. And a few other names that can't be printed here. In parts of America, the Great Recession hammered the economics of practicing law, and underemployed lawyers' angry "scam blogs" (such as the ones listed above) have swung mallets at the situation ever since.

Refugee-resettlement isn't just a flashpoint in East Coast cities and airports. It's showing up in conversations and policy proposals in Bismarck, Fargo, several cities in Minnesota—and Grand Forks. Residents on all sides should listen and learn. For both the skeptics and the supporters have important messages; and if they'd only start talking to rather than past each other—while banning the word "racism" from the conversation—something good might actually result.

How to turn off independent voters and push them toward the other party: If you’re a Democrat, blindly support public-sector unions, even when those unions clearly are working in their own — not the taxpayers’ — interest. And if you’re a Republican, keep on with the Voter ID charade, in which the GOP’s conservative wing backs only those rules that happen to suppress Democratic-leaning votes. Case in point on the latter situation: the latest fracas in the North Dakota Legislature, this one involving student IDs. The Legislature’s 2013 Voter ID law — which passed both Houses on almost entire

Electricity. Cars. Air travel. Computers. Not to mention smart phones, refrigerators, air conditioning, even Keurig coffee machines … These and other innovations have transformed civilization, making life in the 21st century better than at any time in the history of the world. And they all stem from science. Chances are, the parents who refuse to vaccinate their children fully enjoy those amenities.

There’s no need for the University of North Dakota to be shy at this point about choosing a new nickname. But shy is how UND is choosing to proceed. That’s shown by comments such as this one, which Forum News Service reporter Anna Burleson quoted in her recent story on the issue: “We want to emphasize that the work of this group will be to establish a process, not to select a new nickname or logo,” said one administrator.

“UND and NDSU could meet back on the football field in 2015,” a Bismarck TV station reported in 2012. The two rivals had the same open date on their calendars — Sept. 19, 2015. The two athletic directors were talking about contract terms. And North Dakotans looked forward to the result. Because “most fans in the state can’t wait to get the rivalry renewed,” the story reported. Now, it’s two years later.

The stakes couldn’t have been higher when President Barack Obama faced the “Go/No go” decision to get Osama bin Laden. A disastrous outcome would have haunted his administration. It would have been even more humiliating than the Desert One debacle in 1980, which ended with two U.S. aircraft destroyed, eight servicemembers dead and Jimmy Carter a one-term president. And yet, confronted with that stark possibility, Obama made the tough call. “Go,” he decided.

It took explosions, fires and deaths before federal and state regulators got grimly serious about the risks of transporting Bakken oil. Likewise, it took the discovery of mounds of dumped oil-field waste before North Dakota regulators made safe disposal a top priority. Now, here’s a suggestion for North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple and his regulatory officials: Don’t wait for the next emergency. Instead, give priority to anticipating that emergency.

“The neighborhood curling team,” The New York Times headlined its story in 2010, which profiled the U.S. men’s Olympic curling team for that year. “All five members of the team — four on the ice and one as an alternate — are from Minnesota.” Moreover, three of the five had been friends since boyhood; and now, there they were, a self-formed team of real-life neighbors, on their way to the Olympics. It was an echo of the original Olympic spirit of amateurism. And if the team had won, it could have been curling’s “Miracle on Ice,” as impressive as the famed U.S.

Why has Vladimir Putin succeeded? In part, because he understands the virtue of decisiveness. He acted: He assessed the risks of intervening in Ukraine, judged them acceptable and gave the orders. Mind you, these were not rash decisions on Putin’s part. The Russian president rightly calculated that around the world, only Ukraine would care as much as about Ukraine as Russia does; and Ukraine posing no significant military threat (at least in Crimea), the odds of Russia’s success upon intervening were high. But dictators and presidents alike ponder those kinds of odds all the time.